I suspect Fitzgerald and the RoveGate participants are busy writing plea agreements and making arrangements to surrender to authorities - and that major news won't break until late this afternoon or even later this week. So, I'm heading back to work.

For major newsbreaks, keep checking Huffington Post and Raw Story. For video replays, head over to Crooks and Liars. For a roundup of opinions on both sides, head to Gabe Rivera's Memeorandum, and congrats to Gabe for this very flattering and true Tech Station article about his site. My favorite line, of course, is this one:

Gabe Rivera has built a website seamlessly driven by a proprietary algorithm which fuses blogs and MSM stories into a one page intersection of instant commentary lined up with political news and tech news. This is fresh. The algorithm updates every five minutes. It covers opinion: where else can you see TalkLeft and Powerline on the same page. It's a very quick read. And, amazingly, it is largely automatic.

The New York Times also has a roundup of blogger posts on PlameGate. No need to stick to that topic though, this thread's for you. For an assortment, don't miss Cursor.

Raw Story reports that Cheney Aide John Hannah is cooperating with Fitzgerald. If it's true, I'm not surprised. In John Hannah and Lewis Libby Still Key in Plame Probe, I wrote:

I think this UPI article by Richard Sale from February 5, 2004 is right on the money.

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has submitted her questionnaire.

In 1989, she pledged support for the Human Life Amendment.

The abortion issue hangs over Miers' nomination much as it did over the appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts earlier this year. The situations are different, however — Roberts replaced the late William Rehnquist, who voted to overturn the 1973 abortion ruling. Miers would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has voted to uphold it.

"A candidate taking a political position in the course of a campaign is different from the role of a judge making a ruling in the judicial process." said Jim Dyke, a White House spokesman.

In interviews with Senators, she has denied telling anyone how she would vote on Roe v. Wade.

Reuters is speculating that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald may be offering putative defendants one last chance to make a deal in the Valerie Plame investigation.

The prosecutor investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative has yet to say whether he will bring charges, but he has decided to announce decisions in the case in Washington rather than Chicago, where he is based, his spokesman said on Monday....It is unusual for Fitzgerald's office to offer comment on any aspect of the case and Monday's statement led some observers to wonder if it might be a signal that a decision was imminent or that Fitzgerald was trying to increase pressure on potential targets to cut a deal.

It has to be a tempting offer for several of them.

Bump and Update: Here's the Daily News story:

Cheney's name has come up amid indications Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge - with help from a secret snitch. "They have got a senior cooperating witness - someone who is giving them all of that," a source who has been questioned in the leak probe told the Daily News yesterday.

*****
Original Post:

Raw Story reports that the New York Daiy News will report in Tuesday's edition that a high level White House official has flipped and is now helping Fitzgerald.

The ever-secretive Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald announced today that the outcome of the Valerie Plame leak investigation will be announced in Washington, not Chicago.

"If and when there would be any announcement, it would be made in Washington," said Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald's spokesman....It is unusual for Fitzgerald's office to offer comment on any aspect of the case and Monday's statement led some observers to wonder if it might be a signal that a decision was imminent or that Fitzgerald was trying to increase pressure on potential targets to cut a deal.

That tells me there will be indictments. The case is in D.C., and anyone indicted will have to surrender and appear for court there. If there weren't going to be indictments, Fitzgerald could make that announcement from anywhere.

The Associated Press reports that Judith Miller's notes from one of her conversations with Lewis Libby are wrong, and that the error may help Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in his probe. I think this is more spin coming from Lewis Libby's team.

Miller disclosed this weekend that her notes of a conversation she had with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on July 8, 2003 stated Cheney's top aide told her that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) unit.

Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, never worked for WINPAC, an analysis unit in the overt side of the CIA, and instead worked in a position in the CIA's secret side, known as the directorate of operations, according to three people familiar with her work for the spy agency.

I just re-discovered this handy little list from Newsday in March, 2004:

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed White House records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets in a special investigation into the improper leak of a covert CIA official's identity to columnist Robert Novak last July. They include:

Robert Novak, "Crossfire," "Capital Gang" and the Chicago Sun-Times
Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday
Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine
Evan Thomas, Newsweek
Andrea Mitchell, "Meet the Press," NBC
Chris Matthews, "Hardball," MSNBC
Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC
Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times
Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal
John Solomon, The Associated Press
Jeff Gannon, Talon News

Note it is not the reporters who were subpoenaed, but records of White House contacts with them.

Reps. John Conyers and Ike Skelton, as ranking members of the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, respectively, have written the following letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (now available here):

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write about reports that journalists who were embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq were given security clearances. In her recounting of discussions with Scooter Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, disclosed her belief that she had a security clearance. She specifically wrote, "[d]uring the Iraq war, the Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment 'embedded' with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons."1 She also noted she was not certain whether her clearance was in existence at the time she met with Mr. Libby.2

by TChris

A letter from Tom DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, reveals that DeLay was offered the chance to plead guilty to a misdemeanor as an alternative to being indicted for a felony. The letter, which characterizes the offer as an attempt to coerce a plea from DeLay, accompanied a series of motions that DeGuerin filed in court. These include a motion for a speedy trial, a motion to dismiss the indictments for failure to allege wrongdoing by DeLay, and a motion seeking severance of DeLay's case from his co-defendants.'

Update: A neighbor and sometimes caretaker of the Horowitz property, Joseph Lynch, may be a suspect. Horowitz had tried to get a restraining order against Lynch in June alleging he was afraid for the wife. Horowitz told Dan Abrams it was clear his wife had tried to defend herself. The house was under construction in a remote area and burglary does not seem to be involved. The Horowitz' were living on a trailer on the property while it was being finished.

Sheriff's press conference at 6:30 ET: The autopsy took 3/12 hours. Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. It is a homicide. No one is under arrest. It is a wide open investigation. They are considering all possible theories and motives. Both Daniel Horowitz and Joseph Lynch have been very cooperative. They have interviewed several neighbors. They have not ruled anyone out. Crime lab personnel are collecting evidence to test.

Joseph Lynch has talked to the Associated Press. He says he was on the property the day she was killed, and heard the sirens coming. He acknowledged friction between him and the Horowitz' at times.

There's a great post today byAttytood on Andrea Mitchell, Cheney and that July, 2003 White House's 90th birthday reception for Gerald Ford. Remember, Fitzgerald subpoenaed the guest list.

And, it was not just a birthday party for Gerald Ford. There was a co-honoree, as I recall from doing research on this months ago -Allan Greenspan, who just happens to be married to Andrea Mitchell. I believe she was at that party. So she might know why Fitzgerald was interested in that guest list. She never talks about it.